I have been wanting to learn to plastic weld for some time now and was just given an EZG 60 (thanks, Badazws6!). With it's past history, it should give me plenty of practice! Anyhow, I was wondering if anyone out there has any suggestions/tips for me before I get melting my new broken boat away, please feel free to critique the following.
From what I have gathered, here is the idea:
- heat up the plastic to the melting point by incrementally increasing temperature of your heat source and giving each increased temp setting some time to see it's effect before you crank it up to the next level (once the setting is learned, I assume you can just go to it from the start for the next welding session). Once plastic darkens a bit/ gets a bit shiny, it is melted.
- Add/melt welding rod material into crack and mix melted boat + melted rod material so they bond to one another (don't just melt the welding rod into the crack)
- Let cool
- Sand to desired finish
Somewhere I had read that some people actually add in a piece of metal screen into the weld to increase strength, any feelings on that?
Also, I know the plastic blend is important as well. As I understand it, only linear plastics can be welded. I believe that the EZG60 is made of linear plastic, but can anyone confirm it?
If so, will any linear plastic welding rod from a kayak shop do, or do I need to get the exact blend from Wavesport?
Thanks a million, everyone! Cheers,
-Tony